The Secret to Setting Yourself Up For ABM Success

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Ali Biggs is the Director of Marketing at RollWorks, AdRoll Group. Ali built her career on connecting people to brands via meaningful interactions. She enjoys taking a B2C marketing approach and conjuring up unique and informative ways to be at the forefront of a B2B buyer's mind. She is a savvy marketer with an array of experience, from campaign management to account-based marketing, and has a history of aligning sales and marketing teams through data-driven strategy.

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ABM is rocking the marketing world, but how can you make sure that you’re reaching not just your target accounts but also the people within those accounts with the most purchasing influence? In this article, Ali Biggs, Director of Marketing at AdRoll Group, explores the metrics that set you up for true ABM success

Marketers all over the globe are digging into account-based marketing (ABM) to help reach key accounts. But few feel confident in their execution. According to Constellation Research, only 19 percent of companies pursuing ABM are confident in their ability to execute it properly. So where does this self-doubt come from?

ABM requires a greater trust in technology than traditional marketing techniques. In most cases, the marketer is plugging inputs into an incredibly complex data set that drives complicated AI algorithms that execute the program. And it’s working. SiriusDecisions has reported that 91 percent of marketers that use ABM have indicated a larger deal size, with 25% stating their deal size being over 50% larger.

However, where there is innovation, there should also be cautious. B2B marketers need to better understand the tech behind how ABM matches contacts to accounts, so they don’t make decisions based on the wrong measurement metrics. One place where we are seeing ABM numbers getting “fuzzy” is with digital advertising match rates.

Here are the four ABM metrics you should use to set yourself up for success in account-based digital advertising:

1. Total Match Rate: the total number of cookies found for the emails input

(Total Match Rate = Number of Matched Emails x Number Cookies per Email)

Your total match rate is like a total reach in a traditional marketing campaign. It is a useful metric to give you a general idea of how many devices you are serving impressions to, but it does not tell the whole story.

Once you have uploaded your list of emails (contacts) into the ABM platform, the platform will tell you the total number of cookies (devices) it has found that correspond to those emails.

However, people often log onto multiple devices with the same email. For example, if you input 10 emails, and the ABM platform matches three emails with five devices each, the match rate will be 15 cookies (devices), or 150%, for the 10 emails, even though seven of those emails did not match any cookies at all.

In the end, you need to consider metrics beyond total match rate to propel your ABM strategy into success.

2. True Match Rate: the number of contacts that were matched to at least one cookie

(True Match Rate = Number of Matched Emails)

True Match Rate is a much more accurate representation of the strength of your dataset. True Match Rate will tell you the total number of people you can target based on the emails you have entered.

True Match Rate does not double-count if someone has multiple devices; it only counts the number of people. For example, if this were a game and we gave a point for each time you found a person, it wouldn’t matter if you found a person with one device or a person with five devices. Both matches would only earn you one point. This is a very useful metric because, at the end of the day, you want to know how many humans—not machines—you reach with your ads.

Combining Total Match Rate and True Match Rate is a great way to understand the strength of your ABM dataset. Ideally, you want to match emails with many people AND their many devices.

Account Match Rate: how many accounts can be targeted

At first glance, Account Match Rate may seem like a simple metric, but it is the most common way ABM vendors will over-promise results. Account Match Rate tells you how many accounts on your target account list match to at least one contact. This is the most misleading metric if you don’t know what you’re looking at, here’s why:

If you’re using an IP-based ABM system, it means you’re targeting based on the physical address of where a company is located. The ABM platform finds anyone with a specific corporation’s IP address that it has in its database, and it will tell you it has matched to that account, regardless of the level or department of the employee.

Cookie-based ABM platforms, on the other hand, offer much more information about the devices they are targeting. With a cookie-based provider, you can eliminate certain roles outside of your target buyer personas and get much more granular with your targeting.

4. Account Coverage: how many cookies you’re reaching at each account

Perhaps one of the most important overall metrics for account-based marketing is account coverage. This is not a match rate, but it closely ties to the above metrics.

Account coverage tells you the penetration you have into a given account. As we explained with the match rates above, it does not matter if you match to a company on your target account list if the cookies you have matched with don’t connect to the devices of your target buyers.

Account coverage becomes more important as the size of the deal you are trying to close increases. The average B2B deal now requires 6.8 people to sign off before a company makes a purchase. That means that even if you match two or three cookies to a given account, you could be missing key influencers in the sale.

When you are evaluating account coverage, you will want to make sure that your ABM provider has strong AI capabilities to sort through all that data and evaluate the highest fit accounts with the most account coverage. Though your ABM strategy should make bidding decisions based on several factors, not just account coverage, to improve your costs overall.

Making ABM Work for You

ABM is an incredibly powerful marketing strategy, which is why so many B2B companies are adopting it. Those running ABM are seeing strong results. The issue now is not whether ABM is worth it or not, but rather how to do ABM well.

When considering the true value that an ABM platform can bring to your business, be sure to keep the four metrics above in mind: Total Match Rate, True Match Rate, Account Match Rate and Account Coverage. It is also important to consider whether you are looking to implement IP-based or cookie-based targeting, and what benefits each can provide for your campaigns.

Account-based marketing is maturing and it’s here to stay. Do not settle for shallow answers to these important questions.